Welcome

Dear friends

We invite all members of your PICU team join us and nearly 300 colleagues to attend our annual PICS conference in Bristol on September 19-21st. The theme of the conference is the ‘PICS of the Future’. Our program aims to review aspects of best clinical practice currently available but also to look to the future in terms of technology on the horizon and how it may affect our clinical practice. Our conference aims to appeal to those across the multidisciplinary critical care team, and will also focus on key areas that affect us all: recruitment, member retention, and how we support each other in the difficult work we do.

Designing a programme to cover such a breadth of interests is ambitious and we hope to use traditional conferencing methods enhanced with the introduction of a Conference App. The structure of the conference will be based around 2 days of plenary talks underpinning workshops and up to 5 parallel sessions. There will be a number of courses run on our pre-conference day and there will be the usual opportunities for colleagues to show-case their original work in oral presentations, free paper sessions and on e-poster facilities. We hope that this multi – stream format will give real choice to delegates and allow them to design a programme to suit their needs.

The introduction of a Conference App will bring many advantages: improve communications before, during, and after the Conference; giving information on faculty and speakers; allowing programme topics to be available prior to the conference with the opportunity to indicate what sessions you wish to attend and network with faculty beforehand. The App may also be used so you can request time with our exhibitors so enabling you to investigate kit and services.

Finally we aim to provide a great social and networking occasion to welcome you to Bristol. We are planning a conference evening starting with a transfer through the famous floating harbour of Bristol to Brunel’s SS Great Britain; a visit then to the SS Great Britain Museum ; before boarding the steam ship herself for food and refreshments served on each deck, and entertainment below. We plan a relaxed and engaging evening for you our colleagues.

We really look forward to your company in September against the wonderful backdrop of Bristol and hope our conference will provide the opportunity to network with old colleagues, make new friends, and be stimulated by some great speakers.

James Fraser and Adrian Humphry on behalf of the Bristol PICS 2018 organising committee